Society Spotlight: The Smash Bros Society

Society Spotlight is our blog series aimed at showcasing the many clubs and societies here at Memorial University. This week, the Muse met with John Bugden, president of the Smash Bros NL Society in their society room in the University Centre, to learn more about their group.

Q: What is the Smash Bros NL Society?
A: It’s kind of like a big group split into two parts with the Smash 4 scene at Midgard and the Melee scene here at MUN. Basically we run tournaments every Thursday which, right now it’s Melee and we do singles three times and doubles once. We also do side tournaments as well as running major tournaments every two or three months, which are two to three days long.

Q: Just to clarify, singles and doubles, is elimination rounds?
A: No, singles is one versus one and doubles is two versus two, like teams.

Q: How did the Smash Bros NL Society Start?
A: I wasn’t around for this, but originally it split off from Sandbox Gaming with Clay Burton and Richard Hughes who ran a few tournaments and then it slowly became its own thing over time. And then the society became a thing. I think Clay tried to make it a society before he left. He left a few years ago. We got ratification really quickly. Which is how we got the room really quickly compared to other societies.

Q: Do you have any big events or major plans for this year?
A: Coming up in April, the weekend directly after exams we have Storm the Rock, which is like the Newfoundland version of Storm the Atlantic and the Storm Circuit. Throughout the Atlantic provinces, there’s Storm the Atlantic so there’s a Storm tournament in every province like, in P.E.I there’s Storm the Island, there’s Storm the Harbour.

Q: So there are ones for all the Atlantic provinces and then the Atlantic one?
A: Yeah and there’s going to be a final one, Storm the Atlantic in New Brunswick. There was one last year and that’s what started this whole big circuit. Now we’re coming up to Storm the Rock, which is the next one. And then after that there’s one more in June, which was supposed to be ours but we swapped for April. And then we go to the final one in August.

Q: How can people support or get involved with the Smash Bros NL society?
A: Honestly, just showing up helps increase numbers. If you enjoy it, bring setups like TVs. As you can see we have tons of TVs here. Bringing setups, helping out however you can, that kind of stuff. It’s hard to explain exactly how, but just showing up helps out a lot.

Q: When and where is your next event?
A: This Thursday, doors open at six, and then sign-ups start at 7, and the tournament starts about 7:30.

Q: How can people find more information the Smash Bros NL Society?
A: Just going to the Smash Bros NL Facebook page, all the information is there. Or they can just come here (UC 6th floor society room) I guess, when someone’s playing Smash Bros.

Q: Does that happen?
A: Yeah people come by all the time. One time a few guys were just playing here and then someone just showed up and they were like, “Oh cool, I like Smash Bros.” And they said, “Yeah there’s a Facebook page.” And he joined it.

Q: What to you makes Smash Bros such a big game that brings a bunch of people together, even in Newfoundland?
A: Personally, I just think it’s so fun and satisfying to play. I just find it’s so satisfying to string combos together. It’s so much different then any other fighting game where there are no traditional health bars, you have to throw them off and get them away. Also, I guess a lot of people grew up with the game in general, so everyone has that familiarity with it. And then people realized there’s a scene for it and just started playing it more and more, and then their friends started playing it. It’s happened to me.

Q: Who’s your favourite character in Smash and in which Smash?
A: Mine? Marth in Melee, by far. He’s the only real character to play in a Smash game. And I don’t really play anyways. I used to play Project M too, but that’s about it.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to say about the Society? Do you have regular meetings?
A: Not really, we don’t really have meetings we just have our weeklies and stuff. If you want to bring anything up to us we can talk about it there. We’re always open to new ideas and stuff like that. We also have our streams, Twitch.tv/smashnl, where you can watch every Thursday night or every major as well. All info is posted on the Facebook page as well.

Q: So you stream the weekly tournaments as well as the major ones.
A: We stream the weeklies, majors, everything. Assuming I’m around.

For more information about Smash Bros NL Society, check out their Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/smashnl/.